"This concludes the report.

"Personal addendum for Gregg Caldwell…" The view of Hunt was replaced by a landscape showing a wilderness of ice and rock. "This place you’ve sent us to, Gregg-the mail service isn’t too regular, so I couldn’t send a postcard. It’s over a hundred Celsius degrees below zero; there’s no atmosphere worth talking about and what there is, is poisonous; the only way back is by Vega, and the nearest Vega is seven hundred miles away. I wish you were here to enjoy all the fun with us, Gregg-I really do!

"V. Hunt from Ganymede Pithead Base. End of transmission."

Chapter Twenty-Four

The long-awaited answers to where the Lunarians had come from and how they came to be where they had been found sent waves of excitement around the scientific world and prompted a new frenzy of activity in the news media. Hunt’s explanation seemed complete and consistent. There were few objections or disagreements; the account didn’t leave much to object to or disagree with.

Hunt had therefore met fully the demands of his brief. Although detailed interdisciplinary work would continue all over the world for a long time to come, UNSA’s formal involvement in the affair was more or less over. So Project Charlie was run down. That left Project Ganymeans, which was just starting up. Although he had not yet received any formal directive from Earth to say so, Hunt had the feeling that Caldwell wouldn’t waste the opportunity offered by Hunt’s presence on Ganymede just when the focus of attention was shifting from the Lunarians to the Ganymeans. In other words, it would be some time yet before he would find himself walking aboard an Earth-bound cruiser.

A few weeks after the publication of UNSA’s interim conclusions, the Navcomms scientists on Ganymede held a celebration dinner in the officers’ mess at Pithead to mark the successful end of a major part of their task. The evening had reached the warm and mellow phase that comes with cigars and liqueurs when the last-course dishes have been cleared away. Talkative groups were standing and sitting in a variety of attitudes around the tables and by the bar, and beers, brandies, and vintage ports were beginning to flow freely. Hunt was with a group of physicists near the bar, discussing the latest news on the Ganymean field drive, while behind them another circle was debating the likelihood of a world government being established within twenty years. Danchekker seemed to have been unduly quiet and withdrawn for most of the evening.

"When you think about it, Vic, this could develop into the ultimate weapon in interplanetary warfare," one of the physicists was saying. "Based on the same principles as the ship’s drive, but a lot more powerful and producing a far more intense and localized effect. It would generate a black hole that would persist, even after the generator that made it had fallen into it. Just think-an artificially produced black hole. All you’d have to do is mount the device in a suitable missile and fire it at any planet you took a dislike to. It would fall to the center and consume the whole planet-and there’d be no way to stop it."

Hunt looked intrigued. "You mean it could work?"

"The theory says so."

"Christ, how long would it take-to wipe out a planet?"

"We don’t know yet; we’re still working on that bit. But there’s more to it than that. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to put out a star using the same method. Think about that as a weapon-one black-hole bomb could destroy a whole solar system. It makes nucleonic weapons look like kiddie toys."

Hunt started to reply, but a voice from the center of the room cut him off, rising to make itself heard above the buzz of conversation. It belonged to the commander of Pithead Base, special guest at the dinner.

"Attention, please, everybody," he called. "Your attention for a moment, please." The noise died as all faces turned toward him. He looked around until satisfied that everyone was paying attention. "You have invited me here tonight to join you in celebrating the successful conclusion of what has probably been one of the most challenging, the most astounding, and the most rewarding endeavors that you are ever likely to be involved in. You have had difficulties, contradictions, and disagreements to contend with, but all that is now in the past. The task is done. My congratulations." He glanced toward the clock above the bar. "It is midnight-a suitable time, I think, to propose a toast to the being that started the whole thing off, wherever he may be." He raised his glass. "To Charlie."

"To Charlie," came back the chorus.

"No!"

A voice boomed from the back of the room. It sounded firm and decisive. Everybody turned to look at Danchekker in surprise.

"No," the professor repeated. "We can’t drink to that just yet."

There was no suggestion of hesitation or apology in his manner. Clearly his action was reasoned and calculated.

"What’s the problem, Chris?" Hunt asked, moving forward away from the bar.

"I’m afraid that’s not the end of it."

"How do you mean?"

"The whole Charlie business-There is more to it-more than I have chosen to mention to anybody, because I have no proof. However, there is a further implication in all that has been deduced-one which is even more difficult to accept than even the revelations of the past few weeks."

The festive atmosphere had vanished. Suddenly they were in business again. Danchekker walked slowly toward the center of the room and stopped with his hands resting on the back of one of the chairs. He gazed at the table for a moment, then drew a deep breath and looked up.

"The problem with Charlie, and the rest of the Lunarians, that has not been touched upon is this: quite simply, they were too human."

Puzzled looks appeared here and there. Somebody turned to his neighbor and shrugged. They all looked back at Danchekker in silence.

"Let us recapitulate for a moment some of the fundamental principles of evolution," he said. "How do different animal species arise? Well, we know that variations of a given species arise from mutations caused by various agencies. It follows from elementary genetics that in a freely mixing and interbreeding population, any new characteristic will tend to be diluted, and will disappear within relatively few generations. However"-the professor’s tone became deadly serious-"when sections of the population become reproductively isolated from one another-for example, by geegraphical separation, by segregation of behavior patterns, or by seasonal differences, say, in mating times-dilution through interbreeding will be prevented. When a new characteristic appears within an isolated group, it will be confined to and reinforced within that group; thus, generation by generation, the group will diverge from the other group or groups from which it has been isolated. Finally a new species will establish itself. This principle is fundamental to the whole idea of evolution: Given isolation, divergence will occur. The origins of all species on Earth can be traced back to the existence at some time of some mechanism or other of isolation between variations within a single species. The animal life peculiar to Australia and South America, for instance, demonstrates how rapidly divergence takes effect even when isolation has existed only for a short time.

"Now we seem to be satisfied that for the best part of twenty-five million years, two groups of terrestrial animals-one on Earth, the other on Minerva-were left to evolve in complete isolation. As a scientist who accepts fully the validity of the principle I have just outlined, I have no hesitation in saying that divergence between these two groups must have taken place. That, of course, applies equally to the primate lines that were represented on both planets."